DO TELL: California’s Health Secretary Concedes There Is No Empirical Basis for the State’s Ban on Outdoor Dining. “Ghaly was responding to a reporter who asked whether there are ‘any data’ to support a ban on outdoor dining, such as evidence of outbreaks linked to that specific setting. His answer implicitly conceded that there are no such data. The ban, he said, is based not on a determination that outdoor dining is especially dangerous but on a desire to keep people from leaving their homes.”

Plus: “Ghaly’s premise that prohibiting outdoor dining will encourage Californians to eat ‘in a lower-risk way’ seems pretty dubious. While that policy may cause some people to have food delivered and consume it at home with no one outside their households, others, deprived of a relatively safe dining option, may instead privately get together with friends and relatives indoors, a much higher-risk setting.”